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What’s the story?
In a recent interview with RochesterFirst.com, one half of the current Smackdown Live Tag Team Champions Luke Harper spoke about his interesting journey in the world of Professional Wrestling, as he revealed that he had to initially turn down the tryout offer made by the WWE.
In case you didn’t know…
Harper was first signed by the WWE in 2012 under the company’s developmental territory of FCW, which was eventually rebranded to NXT later that year.
Shortly after making his debut for the company, Harper aligned himself with Bray Wyatt and his group called The Wyatt Family, where Harper was billed as the “first son”—with Harper’s partner Erick Rowan being the “second son”.
During his tenure with NXT, Harper and Rowan successfully won the NXT Tag Team Championships and around 2014, Harper also went on to win his first singles championship when he captured the WWE Intercontinental Title.
The heart of the matter
During his conversation with RochesterFirst.com, Harper narrated an interesting story regarding his journey to the WWE, as the former WWE Intercontinental Champion claimed that he had to initially turn down WWE’s first offer when the company called him for a tryout.
“My wife told me she was pregnant and I lost my job, I was a librarian at Frederick Douglas Middle School and so I thought the world was over and they called and said, “Hey, can you come for a trial and I said, ‘No, I have a broken leg.'”
Despite not being able to show up for the first tryout call, Harper was apparently lucky enough to be reached out by the WWE six months later once again, when he was seemingly considering to retire from the Pro Wrestling industry for good.
“My wife was 8 months pregnant and I was just coming back from Japan and I said, ‘Honey, I’m done, this is it, I’m just going to go get another real job and we’ll make do here,’ and that’s the day (WWE called saying), ‘Hey, can you come for a tryout?’”
What’s next?
Harper is currently working under the Smackdown Live brand, where he is one half of the current SD Live Tag Team Champions with Rowan—collectively the two men are known as The Bludgeon Brothers.
Author’s Take
Harper, in my opinion, is one of the best high-flying and agile big men in the world of Pro Wrestling today and seeing him do wonders under the WWE banner is definitely an awesome sight to witness.
